News

The 2010 GB Schoolboys was held by ABS Ltd in the Templehall Community Centre in Kirkcaldy on 14 and 15 May 2010.

Our boxers took part in the opening ceremony which started at 11am on Friday 14 May and the event was opened by the Deputy Mayor of Kirkcaldy. A moving tribute to Archie McKay was also made by MC Craig Stephens.

Once the tournament began, a very patriotic home crown was treated to several exciting bouts of boxing over the course of the weekend.

Scotland finished second in the medal table with 5 Gold, 12 Silver and 14 Bronze medals in total. The Scottish boxers who won a GB title are as follows;

Lewis Hay, Ben Kynoch, David Burrell, Aiden Gough and Aiden McGlynn.

Jonathan Clatworthy of Wales was voted best Boxer of the tournament and David Burrell was voted best Scottish Boxer. David is the first recipient of the Archie McKay memorial trophy and this will be awarded annually.

There was also a 1995 57Kg Scottish Schoolboy bout contested during the GB Schoolboy event. This was between Craig Cox from Greenock ABC and Alan Laing from Aberdeen ABC. Alan Laing won the bout with a score of 14 – 8.

ABS Ltd is delighted to announce that it has appointed Mark Geraghty, Head Coach of Queensferry ABC, as its new Women’s Boxing Coach.

Mark will be in charge of developing Women’s boxing and responsible for establishing a structure that increases participation and improves the performances of our Women Boxers. Mark will initially be holding assessment days for Women Boxers so that ABS can identify the strength and depth of talent there is in Scotland. Close monitoring via a database will be used to measure growth in Women’s boxing in Scotland.

A Scottish squad will be established and frequent training provided – a competitive structure will also be created to allow a national team to compete in Home internationals and Box cups. ABS will also look to create a domestic competitive structure to allow our Women Boxers to gain more experience through more bouts. The ultimate aim is to produce Women Boxer’s who will compete for Great Britain in the 2012 Olympic Games and beyond.

Amateur Boxing Scotland is delighted to be hosting the G.B. Schoolboy Championships for the very first time on 13-16th May 2010.

Willie Burns is the event organiser and explained that each of the Home Countries must host one of the following categories – Schoolboys, Youth, Junior, or Senior. This year Scotland will host the Schoolboys which is for boxers born in 1996 and 1997.

Willie, a director with Amateur Boxing Scotland, was asked if he would organise the tournament and decided Kirkcaldy would be an ideal venue to host the event.

The boxing is being held over two days  Friday 14th May and Saturday 15th May. The competing nations are England, Wales, and Scotland  who as the host nation will be allowed two boxers  the Scottish champion and runner up.

England and Wales will be represented by their national champions. The tournament will be held in the Templehall Community Centre and is a must for boxing fans in the area.

Local interest will come in the shape of Jack Brunton, Denbeath who started the season by winning the Scottish Novice Championship and then progressed on to win the Scottish Championship. The other Fife club is Kelty who will field two boxers, Donald Stewart and Paul Greenhorn.

The opening ceremony will be hosted by the Depute Mayor Liz Mogg and will feature some Scottish culture as many of the visitors may not have travelled to Scotland before.

ABS Ltd is seeking to fill these two posts – Application forms and job descriptions can be downloaded from the documents section of the website.

These two posts are key in strengthening ABS in the areas of performance and development and are the first of their kind in ABS. Performance and Development are two key deliverables in ABS’s 2010 – 2016 strategic plan.

The Coach and Club Development Officer will be responsible for the delivery of the United Kingdom Coaching Certificate (UKCC) and to implement programmes of education and continued professional development for coaches throughout Scotland.

Another key role of this post will be to work with clubs throughout the country to assist them in their development and to increase participation.

The Performance Co-ordinator will assist with the delivery of ABS’s performance programmes and will play a key role in further developing the performance plan.

Under the direction of the ABS National Coach, the Performance Co-ordinator will also work with the sportscotland Institute to outline the level and type of support services are required by ABS’s elite boxers.

Update from ABS Coach Education Director Willie Burns. Willie has spoken to Q Shillingford regarding the costs of the course. Q has checked and confirmed that because is not selling anything he will only charge £100 and not as per the initial post where the cost would have been £117.50.

ABS Ltd is launching a boxing tutor award course that will enable coaches, teachers and volunteers to deliver recreational boxing courses to schools, youth centres and colleges. This will allow for the delivery of non contact boxing programmes to a new range of young people that ABS would not normally reach.

ABS Ltd recently met with the director of this project, Quinton Shillingford, who has successfully held numerous courses in England. Quinton is prepared to assist Scotland and deliver courses for coaches, teachers and volunteers to allow the roll out of this programme.

The Aim

The aim of the one day boxing tutor course is to qualify participants to run boxing courses within schools, community sports projects, boxing clubs universities. The course is open to anyone over 18 years of age.

If you are interested please contact ABS Ltd via the Elgin Office by telephone on 01343 544718 by 14 May 2010.

The first course will be held on Friday 21May 2010 and a second course on Saturday 22 May 2010 depending on demand.

Commonwealth Games Scotland, with support from sportscotland, today announced a new initiative designed specifically to enhance the winning opportunities of Scottish athletes and coaches on the world stage. The Achieve 2014 programme has been created to offer a select number of talented athletes and coaches the opportunity to gain critical knowledge and experience of a multi-sport environment to assist their own preparations for medal success in Glasgow 2014 and beyond.

The project will cost up to £144,000 and includes funding from Commonwealth Games Scotland and an award of £20,000 from sportscotland, with discussions also ongoing with a number of other funders.

Post Games studies and reports on athlete success at multi-sport Games have consistently highlighted that the environment experienced is significantly different to that which most athletes and staff encounter at their own single sport championships. However with prior multi-sport Games experience, team members are better able to cope with this unique environment and are more likely to perform and deliver to their full potential.

Achieve 2014 will offer targeted athletes and coaches identified by sports in the Glasgow 2014 programme, the opportunity to travel to the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games for a five or six day learning experience. Each team member will be afforded the opportunity to observe their own or similar sport in competition and, if time permitting, other sports competing during their stay. Each Achieve 2014 Team member will complete specific learning tasks, daily event logs and, upon return, complete a brief report on their personal experiences throughout the whole event.

Assigned to each Achieve 2014 Team member will be an athlete mentor or coach mentor who will work closely with the individual athletes and coaches prior to departure, during the 2010 Games in Delhi and afterwards to ensure the time spent in Delhi is utilised to achieve a robust, performance related outcome. Today the search started for the mentors who will be recruited by the end of April 2010.

Selection of athletes onto the Achieve 2014 Team will be through a nomination process in partnership with Scottish Governing Bodies of sport and sportscotland. It is anticipated that this opportunity will be offered to up to two athletes and/or one coach per sport.